Some hockey fans vying for a seat at the Alumni Showdown Game between retired Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs as part of this year’s Winter Classic may be out of luck. Over the New Year’s Eve weekend, there will be two alumni games during Winter Fest in the lead up to the classic, featuring today’s Leafs and Wings at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

According to the vice president of marketing for the host Red Wings, most of the alumni tickets are already spoken for.

“We really haven’t gone public with the alumni tickets yet. We’re not sure if we will, based upon the demand that we have so far from our season ticket holders and all the Toronto season ticket holders,” Rob Mattina told CBC News.

...

Mattina said 85,000 seats to the alumni games have already been sold and many more remain on hold.

“We’re still going through our database and connecting with our season ticket holders and Toronto has done the same thing,” he said. “We’re going to wait a couple more weeks and at that point we’ll see where we are, and then we’ll see if we need to have a public sale.”

After being demoted due to salary cap-related reasons, Red Wings forward...Okay, Grand Rapids Griffins forward Gustav Nyquist put on a brave face while speaking with Expressen's Gunnar Nordstrom, and he sounded similar notes when asked about his demotion by the Grand Rapids Press's Peter J. Wallner:

“I really didn’t want to think about it too much,” Nyquist said of going back to the Griffins. “I took camp as an opportunity to take a spot on the roster and, obviously, I knew this was a possibility. But in camp, you’re just focused on playing as well as possible.”

Nyquist realized he was in a difficult position despite playing well in the Red Wings’ eight preseason games.

“I was happy with my camp,” he said. “It’s a just a hard team to take a spot on. A lot of guys and a lot of forwards.”

Wallner says that this is the fifth time that Nyquist has been demoted, and he notes that Nyquist's performed particularly well when stuck in the AHL. Wallner also spoke with Grand Rapids Griffins coach Jeff Blashill about dealing with a particularly disappointed player:

The Grand Rapids Griffins will receive their Calder Cup Championship rings in short order, and the fact that the team chose to retain veteran players Nathan Paetsch, Brennan Evans, Triston Grant and Jeff Hoggan--despite slim-to-nil chances of the latter three playing for the team's NHL affiliate--speaks both to the team's ability to convince veterans to "buy in" and the character of the players they've re-signed.

The latter suggestion's the most accurate assessment of Hoggan's situation, and the Griffins' captain spoke with the Grand Rapids Press's Peter J. Wallner about his decision to turn down NHL offers for the sake of remaining with the team he led to the AHL's summit:

Via RedWingsFeed, Chris Chelios spoke with Fox Sports One's Jay Onrait in his first "Between the Boards" segment as a member of the FS1 crew, and Chelios' loyalties to his employer shone through as he picked the Wings to win the Stanley Cup in a 5-minute NHL preview:

Now, with greater expectations, they must take another step. For the team's sake, it had better not be backwards.

“When you're dealing with younger players there's always a concern they have an off year or take a little bit of a step back,'' Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said. “Sometimes they've had a good year and they get a little comfortable, complacent and all the sudden things start to happen fast, and once it gets spiraling in the wrong direction it's hard to turn it around.''

Holland is confident that won't be the case with this group – “We're not talking about 19-, 20-, 21-year-olds. Our players are a little older, a little more experienced, a little more mature.''

I'm glad that Ken Holland explained his roster moves to the media on Monday afternoon, explaining that the Wings have to a) carry 23 men on their roster and b) spend exactly to the salary cap--which the Wings are doing--to avail themselves of their LTIR cap and roster allowances. Otherwise, Holland would be addressing a Detroit Sports Broadcasters' Association luncheon today with some 'splainin to do.

With Darren Helm and Patrick Eaves out for (as J.J. noted) 24 days and 10 games, and with the Wings accommodating Jordin Tootoo and Jonas Gustavsson's statuses as on the short-term IR, the Macomb Daily's Chuck Pleiness broke the Wings' roster down thusly...

Following the franchise’s first Calder Cup championships, the team gave media a sneak peek at the rings players and team representatives will receive.

The rings, made in collaboration between Griffins’ representatives and Terryberry of Grand Rapids, include the Griffins and Red Wings logos intertwined and an inscription on the inside that says, “Earn this.”

About 131 rings will be made. They will be presented at a private ceremony.

The Griffins open the season Friday at Rochester. The first home game, which will feature the raising on the championship banner, will be Oct. 18.

And while the Griffins were hard at work doing other things this afternoon...

And then things got weird. When the Red Wings finally released their 23-man roster list, it included Patrick Eaves on the LTIR...And Xavier Ouellet recalled from Grand Rapids as an 8th defenseman, as well as Cory Emmerton still on the NHL roster.

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